6 March 2010 – Rebecca

Last year I met a stonemason, Tom, who had spent 7 years working on Hereford cathedral, so with just 40 minutes to spare I was hurrying to catch a first glimpse of those medieval and modern stone angels and gargoyles. But I encountered flesh and blood on the way. As soon as I saw her I thought I knew her. She was young and diminutive, headscarf and long skirt, warmly dressed against the cold, selling the Big Issue in the High Street. I gave her the money and she kept the change. “Where are you from?” “Romania.” “How long have you been here?” “Five years.” “Are you a gypsy?” “I am.” Why in this world is a young woman, perhaps a teenager, from Eastern Europe washed up homeless in Hereford? I know the reasons, and its complex, but it still makes me weep for the alienated, the scattered, for all the Mary Magdalenes.

There is an astonishing passage in the Law of Moses in Deuteronomy that requires God's people to cancel debts every 7 years. But it goes on to say “however, there should be no poor among you” because God would provide for and bless his people. There are of course a few conditions attached, such as prescriptions for a just society, but I cannot see why the same should not apply to us. We are “blessed”, if you will forgive a religious expression. In the West we have abundance, and we also have the poor. But it should not be so since there is actually enough to share. We do have the poor, and the passage goes on to say “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore be open-handed towards .... the poor and needy in your land.” So there we have it. I care about justice but I am still tight fisted; I would fight for the downtrodden but I am too busy working in an economy that tramples on them.

I found the cathedral, the gargoyles and angels, the kings and queens. Did old Tom and his forebear craftsmen recognise that spiritual world when they delighted in upsetting the Dean with disguised Green Men, devils and dragons, the demons of sexuality and the blushing charm of angelic beings? I think so. Justice appeals to a higher law and to forces at war in our hearts. I shall return another day to ponder these things. Hurrying back I found my friend with the same pile of The Big Issue. Are you I wonder, that honey coloured stone queen in the frosty morning sun returned to us? “What is your name?” “Rebecca; ....will you bring me a photo?” “I shall!”